Spirit Walker by David Farland Page B

from the stegosaur’s throat into the air. It kicked its legs as if it might outrace death, then it rolled like an alligator, thrashing its tail as it turned.
    Phylomon went to the wagon, pulled a length of rope from its bed, made a loop, tossed it over the stegosaur’s spiked tail, and cinched it tight. The monster thrashed, unaware of Phylomon, and he tied the beast to a tree so it wouldn’t knock down the walls of nearby houses in its death throes.
    The Pwi came running, shouting the tale of the demise of the mayor’s beast to newcomers, and the humans dashed out from their houses, curious about this man who appeared so seldom. The Pwi crowded round Phylomon, and some of the bolder children even reached out to touch him.
    Phylomon straightened his back, and his head bobbed above the crowd. People were shouting to one another, and he asked a question so softly that Wisteria couldn’t hear him. She’d stood still while he killed the beast, but now she jogged toward him again.
    No one answered the blue man’s question, but several people glanced up toward the mayor’s house. Phylomon looked up at the house, and trudged toward it, kicking up dust. Obviously he was going to confront the mayor. People were still talking loudly, and over the din Wisteria heard Caree Tech shout clearly, “Careful—the mayor has eight brothers!”
    Phylomon nodded at Caree. A man with so many kin in a small town has great power. Phylomon approached the house, then saw the Dryad sitting in her cage in the beating sun.
    Phylomon approached the cage and said with infinite gentleness, “What are you doing here, Aspen Woman?” His voice was very soft, and did not carry well—as if his vocal cords had become atrophied after living for years in solitude. He reached through the bars of the cage to stroke the girl’s silver hair.
    The bars of the cage were made of mottled aspen—the tree she’d been created to nurture. Her genetic programming would not let her try to break the bars, even to escape. She was young, just developing her breasts—near the time when her kind were driven into a mating frenzy.
    “You are a great danger to the people here in town,” Phylomon said. “You should be with your sisters in the mountains, tending your trees.”
    And for the first time since reaching Smilodon Bay, words flowed from the Dryad’s mouth. Her voice had a musical quality that reverberated like the song of a flute. “The Mayor keeps me caged,” she said. “He plans to sell me to slavers in Craal.”
    Several people gasped at the startling beauty of her voice, and perhaps also at the accusation of slavery. Phylomon tilted his head like a robin studying a worm. “So,” he said quietly, “first your mayor defies the old laws by bringing a dinosaur to our land, and then he begins selling slaves to boot.”
    With that Mayor Goodman appeared in his doorway, a large man in girth, with more muscle than fat. “I’m not a slaver,” Goodman said. There was only a trace of fear in his voice, and he carried a tone of authority that the blue man did not equal. “The Dryad is in my care.”
    “You mean she’s in your cage. ” Phylomon held the mayor’s eye, drew his sword, and sliced at the wooden bars of the Dryad’s cage, cutting it as if it were a potato. The Dryad pushed at her bars and began wriggling out.
    The mayor blustered, “Sir, I meant no harm. Why, I raised that dinosaur from an egg,” he said, nodding toward the stegosaur. “The Pwi bring eggs from Hotland every year—and no one ever knows what sort of beast will hatch from them. Why, every boy in town has had such an egg at least once. It’s great fun to see what will hatch—but the dinosaurs always die come winter. Only a freak of chance let this beast make it through the winters. And, as for the Dryad, why, she’s not human. It’s not as if I were selling a human. She cost me a great deal—And I’ve fed her these past three months hoping to get a decent price from